Magnus Carlsen

Sorry about the silence last few days.
(I've been travelling, Magnus sisters have arrived, and the internet in the hotel has been failing....) 

In round 10 Magnus surprised Anand with the 12.... Ne7 variation in the Sveshnikov, and after a long thought Anand decided not to enter the most principled variation with h4 etc.
Allowing the black bishop to remain on g5, black had sufficient activity to more or less equalise, and Vishy offered a draw on move 20.
I was proud to read that some people think Magnus should have declined the offer and played on, what a great confidence you have in him!
However, accepting a draw offer from the world champion and world ranked number one as black when you think that white has more reason to play on than black has, sounds like a very reasonable decision to me.

In round 11 Magnus tried the same variation against Peter Leko. Peter went for 13.h4 and after 10 more theory moves Magnus played the novelty Kh8. Interestingly he totally missed the somewhat interesting line Bd2 Kxd2 Qxf2+ although there may not be a perpetual and black may end up being worse dispate the 3 pawns for the bishop and exposed white king.
Magnus understood he was in real trouble after Rb3 and despite his fairly tenacious defence he could not find a way to avoid the final resulting loss after a very good techical game by Leko.
Maybe there was a draw somewhere in the ending (maybe Be3) but he did not find it.
This moved Magnus back to shared 2^nd (with Aronian and Topalov) after Topalov's nice victory against Shirov. 

In round 12, Magnus played white against Topalov. He chose a relatively quiet set-up with 1.c4 transposing the English Four knight variation into the Sicilian Boleslavsky with reversed colors.
Magnus was fairly happy about his position after Qe5 and Qh6, but after 19.... Qc7 he realized that Bg5 had been a blunder and he moved the bishop back to e3.
Black can grab the pawn on a5 although white has some compensation and attacking chances after f4.
When Magnus played Rd4 offering an exchange he did not expect Topalov to accept it.
Black may have a theoretical line keeping an advantage but it is immensely uncomfortable for a human to have to find maybe 10 only-move defences in a row and especially so for an aggressive player like Topalov.
Black instead responded Rd8 which is a good move, and after the forced continuation white still has some compensation for the pawn but maybe not enough.
In stead of entering a worse ending with drawing chances Magnus obviously preferred to continue his attack and after f5 it is unpleasant for black.
Black took the pawn on e5 and after Bg5 by white, black played Qb6 threatening c4+ and taking the knight on b5.
Magnus continued with the sharp 30.f6 and he thought Topalov should have played Bh8 instead of c4+.
After fxg7 Rxf1 Bxf1 white is two pawns down but has sufficient compensation, and black may easily make a mistake in this dangerous position.
Not surprisingly Topalov chose to take the 3^rd pawn with Kxg7 and after this white has a couple of drawing lines. 
At this point Magnus had some 36 minutes and Topalov 17 for the 7 moves remaining before the time control.

Magnus spent nearly 30 minutes investigating the alternatives Bh6, Bd8 and Qf2 and decided to play Bd8 with the combined threats of mate and attack against the knight on a5, thinking this would provide significant chances for a mistake by black. 
Interestingly Magnus got the impression that Topalov already considered his position lost at this moment and he fairly quickly responded Nc6?? This loses immediately to Qf6+ Kg8 Qe5 Kf8 Bg5! due to Kg7 Qf6+ Kg8 Bh6.  1-0.

The incident at the end of the game was intriguingly similar to their game in Morelia last year!
Last year Topalov resigned in a drawn position, this time he seemingly mentally resigned in a drawn position and blundered. Of course psychology may play a part but from a statistical point of view two such incidents between the same players in the same tournament two years in a row is an amazing coincidence. 

All of the players have complained about fatigue in the Linares part of the tournament. In combination with the great fighting spirit of most of the players throughout the tournament, this may explain the relatively high number of blunders and many decisive games. 

Magnus has 8 decided games so far, and 5 (five!) wins reaching a total of 10 wins this year in Corus and Morelia-Linares. Caissa may have smiled at him but still one cannot fail to be astonished by this feat!  

The other round 12 games ended in draw although Shirov's winning advantage against Aronian looked very promising for some time. 

Anand at 7.5 points, Magnus 7, Aronian 6,5 and Topalov 6 have 50% score or more so far. 
After the free day Magnus will face Aronian with the black pieces in a game decisive to the top 3 final outcome of course. We better make good use the free day:-)

Thanks again for all the supportive comments! 

Henrik Carlsen,
Linares, March 5^th 2008